PhD thesis defence by Azucena Moran
This thesis examines the ways in which climate justice and the green transition are currently being deliberated upon what I theorise is an 'extracted ground'. I argue that current deliberative institutions, in its attempt to ensure a democratic and just transition, currently function by grounding green extractivism, at the expense of what is often known in the literature as 'green sacrifice zones' (Zografos and Robbins, 2020). By looking at deliberative theory through the demands for deliberative autonomy and the rejection of historical dispossession of communities most-affected by green extractivism, I provide an empirically-grounded theory for better understanding climate deliberation and the raw-material injustice it presupposes.
This empirically-driven theorisation is achieved by tracing the colonial complicities of democratic innovations, and then, turning to plurinational and transnational cases of deliberative governance. I first look at one of the most widespread forms of govenrnment-led governance of green extractivism through the implementation of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) in Maya-Q'eqchi' territories in Guatemala, both procedurally and structurally. I then provide an empirical analysis of deliberation during the Global Assembly (GA) at COP26, examining the mechanisms through which everyday citizens deliberated on climate justice at large, and extractivism in particular, in what is widely recognised as a groundbreaking attempt to realise transnational deliberation.
Through empirical evidence, and building on insights from C.L.R. James's anti-colonial deliberative project and Tzul Tzul's decolonial theories of deliberative autonomy, I challenge deliberative democracy's hegemonic foundations of consent and inclusion. The thesis reveals how the emancipatory potential of James's vision—that "every cook can govern"—has been institutionalised so as to include so-called colonial subjects while systematically excluding their collective knowledge and legitimate decision-making authority as political subjects and subjects to historical disposession (see Cumes 2019). The thesis culminates by presenting veto power as a means to address the raw-material injustice of deliberating upon extracted ground, ultimately asking: what would climate futures look like if deliberated beyond this ‘common’ ground?
Azucena Moran researches the intersections of deliberative democracy, transnational climate politics, and the governance of green extractivism. She submitted her PhD at the European University Institute under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Patrizia Nanz and Prof. Dr. Graham Smith. Her dissertation, 'Common ground, extracted ground: deliberating the green transition' develops an empirically grounded theorisation of climate deliberation. She has conducted research at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS Potsdam), the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), Democratic Society, and Public Agenda, focusing on democratic innovations such as climate assemblies and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). Azucena is an active member of Participedia, the Global Citizens’ Assembly Network (GLOCAN), and serves on the methodology advisory board for the Global Assembly for COP30 in Belém, Brazil. She has taught at the University of Potsdam and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO).